Bystander

We never got around to talking about my ‘situation’ that weekend.
We were busy until later Saturday night when the German guys left, and then my dad left early Sunday morning.
He wanted us to talk about it as a family so we’d save it until Monday night.
Mark couldn’t handle waiting, and he was bored, so he set up that I’d have a bodyguard system that involved my bodyguards: Bill, Tom, Gustav, Mark and Natalie. Each of which would accompany me to each and every one of my classes. I shook my head, I doubted any of them would or could protect shit.

When I woke up Monday morning, I tried to sit up. My muscles, weary and exhausted from Priscilla’s beating, screamed in protest. A loud cry choked itself out of my throat as I fell to the floor.
Dad raced down the stairs, a baseball bat clutched in his hands. When he saw me, shuddering and shaking on the ground, he walked over and murmured, “What’s wrong, Addy?”
I sat up, and he saw that I was sobbing uncontrollably, I was hiccupping and gasping and my breathing was quick and jerky. “It hurts, Dad,” I sobbed onto his shoulder, “It hurts so bad.” My tears left a large wet spot on his shoulder, The rest of the shirt was soaked from the blood that poured out when one of my wounds broke open.
My dad sat me on my bed and said, “Lena will help you get ready today. Okay, sweetie, it’s going to be okay.”
By then, I had stopped crying.
Sure enough, Lena came downstairs and I used her as my crutch as I showered and dressed. I applied my makeup cleverly; it was only a bit of eyeliner.
When Lena and I had finally gotten upstairs, to the main floor, I saw that the kitchen wasn’t only occupied by my family. Gustav, Bill and Tom were there, eating breakfast as if they lived there. I looked at them curiously, thankful that the shower had wiped away any proof that I had been crying. They all mumbled greetings before turning back to their cereal.
Mark was the only one who offered me any explanation, “They’ve got a car. They’re driving us to school, too. You should see the car.”
Tom smiled, “My baby.”

I stopped walking when I had seen the car. It was beautiful, a black hummer. Gorgeous.
Tom’s smug voice sounded by my ear, “Impressed?”
I managed to choke out a lie, “No.” I was shaking my head.
Tom stepped backwards and Bill spoke for his shocked comrade, “What?”
“It’s a gas hog,” I muttered before climbing in, running my hands over the lovely leather seats.
Tom was in such a state at my ‘dislike’ for his ‘baby’ that he was unable to drive, Mark got that pleasure. Soon Tom had forgotten about my denial, in the violent fear that took him when he had seen exactly how crazy Mark drives.
When we got to the school, a huge crowd of what looked like reporters with cameras crowded the front of the school. Gustav swore, “Shit, they found us.”
“Found who?” I asked, frowning as I peered out at them.
Bill, who was sitting on my left while Gustav was on my right, frowned at me, “Here, Addie, pull your hood up.”
Gustav retorted, “No! It’ll be too small to cover her face! Make her wear Tom’s!”
I protested, “Why do I have to wear a hood! Why doesn’t Mark have to?” But Mark already had his hood up and covering his face, along with a beanie.
“Here,” Tom grunted, slipping out of his sweatshirt and handing it back to Bill.
“No!” I cried, “I’ll drown in it! Have you seen that thing! It’s huge!”
My cries were muffled as Bill and Gustav wrestled my arms through the thing and pulled the hood over my head, Bill grabbed his own sunglasses and put them on me.
I looked like a guy.
“Why the hell do I have to wear sunglasses in the middle of winter?” I muttered, as Bill grabbed my hand, preparing to dive into the crowd, “There hasn’t been any sun in fucking weeks!”
Bill’s hand held my own firmly as we pressed through the crowd. I noticed that several of the people were screaming girls who clutched posters that said things like, ‘I love you Bill!’ and ‘Gustav!!!!!!!’ (with several exclamation marks) Tom had a couple of posters too, but his name was more commonly found on the front of girl’s shirts. Also, there was some crap about a hotel in Japan, except Tokyo was spelled wrong. They spelled it ‘T-O-K-I-O’.
When we had finally broken into the school, I felt violated.
“God,” I frowned, “What the hell was that for?”
“Well,” Gustav scratched the back of his head, “We’re kind of famous.”
I snarled at him, “Yeah. I understood that part when a girl ran by me screaming your guy’s names! What are you famous for?”
“We’re in a pretty big band,” Tom shrugged smirking, “Gotten a couple of awards for having a kick-ass guitarist.”
I raised my pierced eyebrow, “I may be taking a pretty big stretch here, but I’m assuming that you’re the guitarist.”
Tom nodded, he looked way too smug.
Just then, a girl in a white shirt and black skirt went sprinting through the hallway screaming, “Bill! I want to have your babies!”
I stared at her shocked for a little bit, before I started laughing. Tears started pouring out of my eyes I was laughing so hard. I patted Bill’s really tall shoulder, wiping my eyes, “You are never going to live that down.”

At lunch, I was exhausted, Mark had struck true to his word and in every one of my classes I had at least one person there to ‘protect’ me. I hated it of course; it just gave them something else to stare at when Bill, who was being targeted by a huge portion of my school’s female population, doesn’t sit by Terry O’Tain, who was born with popularity to sit by me.
It was also degrading, seeing the shock on my classmates faces that not only one but four attractive boys could be seen sitting by me. Of course, it was only Natalie’s consistent persistence that had me describe any of the boys as attractive.
I sat down at an empty table with Natalie. I had been glancing around the cafeteria but glanced down when I saw Priscilla and Marco watching me with their little friends. Soon, I heard and felt movement from behind me and saw Tom seat himself directly to my left, while Natalie was on my right. “Hey,” he said before asking. “Can I have my sweatshirt back?”
He let me keep wearing his sweatshirt when I told him that I was cold. Natalie had claimed Bill’s sunglasses before he could take them from me. I nodded and shrugged the monstrosity off, “Here.”
Bill, Mark and Gustav all sat at the table too, Natalie was positively thrilled.
I started eating lunch, pretending not to notice the four very large and very loud boys around me.
They seemed to have a hard time staying still, seeing as the table would jostle every few seconds as if an earthquake had hit it.
“Okay! Would you calm down guys! I can’t even drink my fricken OJ!” I snapped, finally breaking.
A smooth and oily voice sounded from above me, “Jeez, Molby, angry much?”
I tensed, I knew this voice.
Mark stiffened and his eyes narrowed.
The guy said, “Hey Mark.”
Mark responded, “Marco.”
The German boys were confused, but Marco paid no notice as he introduced himself to them, they introduced themselves as well, politely.
“Now,” Mark glared, standing up, “What the fucking hell do you want?”
“Nothing to do with you,” Marco was calm, undisturbed, “I just wanted to talk to your sister here. Maybe over at my table.” His dark eyes were hinting, if I wanted to stay alive, I was supposed to go with him.
“Sorry,” I shrugged, “I uh, was just about to tell Bill a story from...” I paused unsure of what to say.
“Your childhood!” Bill suggested, smiling brightly, I heard a girl sigh from behind us.
“Yes!” I declared, “I was going to tell him about the time I fucked up during my childhood!”
“Couldn’t a story like that wait?” Marco implied his hand on my shoulder. He wasn’t gripping me hard or anything, it was just there, I didn’t want his hand touching, me.
“It’s really important,” Tom said, “Bill’s been trying to get it out of Addie all day and she just now surrendered when he threatened to tickle her!”
Tom, Bill and Gustav didn’t know why I didn’t want to go with Marco, but they knew that I didn’t want to go and that seemed more than enough reason to help me. Natalie cowered slightly, but she muttered a weak, “Yeah.” Marco had beaten her up too.
“Okay,” Marco glared, “I’ll see you later, Adeline.”
There was a bout full of several questions.
Bill’s was, “Who the hell was he?”
Tom asked, “What the hell was his problem?”
Mark was, “Why the hell did he do that?”
Natalie asked, “What the hell did he want?”
And Gustav’s was, “Why the fucking hell didn’t you tell me that your full name was Adeline?”

We laughed a bit; Gustav’s question kind of grounded us.
I left for my next class, one that Bill had too so he went with me.

Tom leaned in, turning to Addie’s brother who was still glaring at his tray, his hands wrapped tightly around a fork. “What was going on?”
“Marco,” Mark muttered through his teeth, “is the fucked up mother fucker who keeps fucking beating up Addie.”
Tom’s breath got caught in his throat, he had been polite to this asshole!
Whether he had wanted to or not, magically, Addie’s problems had now settled on Tom’s shoulders.
And he wasn’t about to let assholes like Marco get away with what he had been getting away with.